The Train de l’Est line should be electrified all the way, but there are practical constraints. Like the fact the AMT doesn’t own the line from where it turns away from the Deux-Montagnes line to at least the river.

Q. Every Tuesday and Thursday in my neighbourhood, one side or the other side of my street is cleaned. Tickets are issued to vehicles whose owners did not move them. There are 55 cars on average, and everyone tries to avoid tickets by spending a great deal of time seeking a safe spot. But once the cleaning machine passes, some move back into the washed area, even though the “no parking” period isn’t over. Some get tickets, most don’t. What is the rule at play? Can we safely reposition our cars back to these zones once the street is cleaned or must we wait until the time is expired, however silly that seems?

Tim MacKinnon

A. Those who aren’t getting tickets are just lucky.

Under Article 30 of Montreal’s traffic and parking regulation, you can’t park a vehicle in a spot during hours where signage prohibits parking, city spokesperson Jacques-Alain Lavallée noted.

If you’re caught, you’ll get a ticket, even if the street-cleaning vehicle is long gone, he said.

“It’s time set aside for maintenance of public land,” Lavallée said. “It’s not just the mechanical broom, it could be to change a light bulb in a lamp post or to trim a tree.”

Why is that AMT train whistle blowing?

Q. Living close to the Sunnybrooke train station, we want to know why the train whistles late at night, disturbing our sleep? It does not happen every night, but often enough. It’s especially evident now with the windows open.

Francine Potvin

A. Trains are obliged to blow their whistles at the Sunnybrooke Blvd. railroad crossing, said Brigitte Léonard, a spokesperson for the Agence métropolitaine de transport.

AMT trains don’t whistle at all crossings because some are exempt from the rule, she said.

Canadian Rail Operating Rules require whistling at public crossings at grade “except as may be prescribed in special instructions,” Transport Canada says.

Faded bike lanes will be repainted in N.D.G.

Q. Regarding Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Ave., your May 15 article states the Côte-des-Neiges–N.D.G. “borough has said it plans to repaint the bike lane this summer.” But while cycling to work this morning, a police officer told me there’s no longer a bike path on N.D.G. and the lines will not be painted.

@clever_cupcakes

A. The officer was mistaken, according to Côte-des-Neiges–N.D.G. borough Mayor Russell Copeman.

The N.D.G. Ave. lane is one of two paths in N.D.G. that have disappeared because of faded lane markings. The other is on nearby Côte-St-Antoine Rd.

Both paths will be moved to the other sides of the streets, as per Vélo Québec guidelines, Copeman said. That change of location delayed the painting of the lanes, but the work should be completed within about two weeks, he said.

The convoluted route should be electrified all the way, but there are practical constraints. Like the fact the AMT doesn’t own the line from where it turns away from the Deux-Montagnes line to at least the river.

Further, it’s difficult, but not impossible, to run catenary wire over tracks that also host double-stacked container trains. You’re pushing the clearance envelope both ways (wire may be too low for clearance of trains, wire may be too high for reliable electric operations).

Peter Laws

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